Ah, but there is a paradox of desire in Buddhism--A reply to Wayne Alt

·期刊原文
Ah, but there is a paradox of desire in Buddhism--A reply to Wayne Alt
By A. L. Herman

Philosophy East and West

Volume 30, no.4

1980 October

P.529-532

(C) by University Press of Hawaii

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P.529

Let me make three brief opening comments on the
third paragraph of the first page of Wayne Alt's
very stimulating critique. Following this I will
move to what I consider his major objection to my
paper, namely, a lack of clarity with respect to
desire3.

First, Alt states, "John Visvader and A. L.
Herman both agree that desire can be eliminated only
by desiring to do so." He's wrong; we do not say
that. Second, he states, "Herman, on the other hand,
presents an argument which is designed to show that
desire can never be eliminated." He's right, that's
what the argument says. But then he continues,
"Neither Visvader nor Herman marshal any
considerations that would establish this strong
conclusion." I am not sure what "this strong
conclusion" refers to, for the argument I presented
is designed to show that if one desires to eliminate
desire, then desire can never be eliminated; but
neither Visvader nor I have argued that desire can
never be eliminated; in fact, I have tried to
demonstrate that the elimination of desire,
nirvaa.na, can occur as a direct result of the
rational insight obtained from the practical
philosophical argument in the paradox of desire. The
paradox of desire, far from making it impossible to
accept or follow the Buddha's prescription regarding
the elimination of desire, renders obedience to that
prescription all the more likely. Third, Alt in
discussing my philosophical argument gives the
impression, later confirmed when he discusses "the
formal validity" of that argument, that the argument
was, indeed, formal. I had no intention of
presenting a formal argument, and I am sorry if my
explication of the paradox of desire resembled a
formal argument. It was meant to be merely a
practical argument, analyzing a paradox that the
Buddhists themselves admit they face when they try
to desire their way through to desirelessness and
nirvaa.na. I shall return to this third comment
shortly.

I think that the chief difficulty that Alt has
with my presentation of the paradox of desire lies
with desire3. Let me see if I can make desire3
clear. He is quite correct when he suggests that
"...it is ultimately desire3, which blocks the road
to desirelessness;" and the paradox of desire, which
John Visvader has beautifully characterized as
uroboric in nature, merely points out the futility
of desiring to end desire by desiring to end it. But
desiring to end desire is not, as Alt suggests, like
desiring to have a teacher. The latter can be
satisfied such that the desire for a teacher need
never arise again. As I indicated in my brief
article, "... the hedonist has found a way to
attaining the control and cessation of desire; he
simply gives in to all of them...." But the desire
to end desire is of a different order of desiring,
and it leads to no cessation of desire as the
Buddhists themselves have been at some pains to
point out. Mr. Alt states,

P.530


Suppose I desire, to eliminate desire2. If I satisfy
desire1, i.e. if I actually manage to eliminate
desire2, then desire1, will thereby be eliminated.
For the satisfaction of any desire is tantamount to
its elimination.

I think that the hedonist would agree and so
would the man desiring a teacher: The satisfaction
of ordinary desire is tantamount to its elimination.
But this does not seem to be the case with desiring
desirelessness. In other words, desire1 is just not
any desire but a very peculiar desire, indeed,
because it is doomed to frustration: And the
survival of desire, desire3, is merely the symbol of
that frustration, that is, desirelessness is not an
intentional object.
Let me try a.historical approach to the paradox
because I am afraid I have been repeating what I
said in my article and this repetition probably will
not satisfy Alt and others regarding the essential
frustration involved in desiring to eliminate desire
and the representation of that frustration in
desire3. The English utilitarian philosopher, Henry
Sidgwick (1838-1900), identified and named a similar
puzzle which he called "the fundamental paradox of
Hedonism."(1) The fundamental paradox of hedonism bears
such a close resemblance to the paradox of desire
that what Sidgwick had to say about the former can,
I believe, give us some insight into the approach we
ought to make to the latter.
The fundamental paradox of hedonism, according
to Sidgwick, is the consequence of observing that
the impulse toward pleasure, if too predominant,
defeats its own aim.(2) Following a discussion of
self-love in his classic work, The Methods of
Ethics, Sidgwick observes:

I should not, however, infer from this that the
pursuit of pleasure is necessarily self-defeating
and futile; but merely that the principle of
Egoistic Hedonism, when applied with a due knowledge
of the laws of human nature, is practically
self-limiting; i.e. that a rational method of
attaining the end at which it aims requires that we
should to some extent put it out of sight and not
directly aim at it.(3)

In the same way the pursuit of desirelessness, that
is, the desire for desirelessness tends in pract ice
to be self-limiting, that is, it tends to defeat its
own end. This is why I suggested in my third comment
at the beginning of this reply that what I offered
was a philosophical argument in the form of an
explication of the paradox of desire leading to a
conclusion about a practical impossibility (a rather
weak claim) rather than a formal valid argument
leading to a logical impossibility (a much stronger
claim) regarding the attainment of desirelessness
through desiring. This served to underscore the
statement I made in the second paragraph of the
original paper, namely, "The paradox of desire
points to the practical contradiction or frustration
involved in the desire to stop all desiring and
states simply that those who d esire to stop all
desiring will never be successful."(4) Desire3 is
the sign of that defeat.

I agree with Alt when he suggests that the
attempt to clarify the concept of desire (and
desirelessness) would make an interesting
philosophical project.(5)

P.531

NOTES
1. Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics
(London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1874/1963), p. 48.
The paradox of hedonism, fundamental or not, can
probably be traced back to Aristotle's nichomachean
Ethics. (Plato at Laws 733b states that pleasure can
be desired and sees no problem in doing so).
Aristotle argues that pleasure is the result of an
activity and in doing so he asks and answers an
intriguing question:

How, then, is it that no one is continuously
pleased? Is it that we grow weary? Certainly all
human things are incapable of continuous activity.
Therefore pleasure also is not continuous; for it
accompanies activity. (Aristotle, Nichomachean
Ethics 1175, 3-6 in The Basic Works of Aristotle,
Richard McKeon ed. (New York: Random House, 1941),
p. 1099.)

Now, one can aim at or desire an activity (or its
cessation) but it is problematic whether one can in
the same sense aim at or desire pleasure. In a
similar fashion, John Stuart Mill, the philosopher
who undoubtedly led Sidgwick to the paradox in the
first place, has said:

But I now thought that this end [happiness] was only
to be attained by not making it the direct end.
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their
minds fixed on some object other than their own
happiness....Aiming thus at something else, they
find happiness along the way....Ask yourself whether
you are happy, and you cease to be so. (John Stuart
Mill, Autobiography in The Harvard Classics, Charles
Eliot Norton, ed. (New York: P. F. Collier & Son
Company, 1909), volume 25, p. 94).

It is, perhaps, an easy move from seeing pleasure or
happiness as that which can only follow from an
activity to seeing pleasure as that which to be got
must be forgot, the conclusion to the paradox of
hedonism. And it is perhaps an easy move from
Aristotle, Mill and Sidgwick to the Buddhist
conclusion that desirelessness to be got must be
forgot.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 136; italics mine.
4. A. L. Herman, "A Solution to the Paradox of
Desire in Buddhism," Philosophy East and West 29,
no. 1 (January, 1979): 91.
5. A more basic set of questions than those
relating to desire and desirelessness, but ones
having a direct bearing on desire and
desirelessness, might well be, "What is a
philosophic problem?" and "What is a philosophic
solution?" Philosophy may begin in wonder as Plate
and Aristotle both seemed to believe; it may remove
the irritation of doubt as James and Dewey have
argued; and it may get us to thinking about
liberating flies from fly bottles as Ludwig
Wittgenstein seemed to hold; but, while doing all of
these things, philosophy does what it does best when
it clearly sets, and attempts to solve, those
curious puzzles commonly designated "philosophic
problems." Philosophers seem generally agreed on the
extensional definition of "philosophic problem" even
though, I believe, the necessary and sufficient
conditions of the phrase have proved elusive thus
far. In other words, philosophers seem to know what
they are referring to when they talk about "the
problems of philosophy" even though they might not
be able to offer a clear analysis of the phrase. For
example, we seem to know that the paradoxes of
hedonism, happiness, nirvaa.na, mok.sa, and desire
are all, indeed, bona fide philosophic problems even
though, thus far, no adequate analysis has shown
what makes them all philosophic problems. It was
Bertrand Russell who said that one of the defining
characteristics of a philosophic problem was that it
had no solution; and were a solution to be provided
it would cease to be philosophic. Russell gave as an
example of a "solved" philosophic puzzle the
pre-Socratic question, What is everything made of?
Since, Russell continued, modern science has
answered the question, it is no longer of
philosophic interest to pursue the question. But the
thing that truly characterized philosophic problems
for Russell was that they have no solutions. I think
Russell is wrong. Philosophic problems are more than
intellectual teething rings on which students of
philosophy cut their philosophic teeth, and I think
it would be discouraging to believe otherwise.
(Imagine students of sociobiology being set problems
for which there could, logically, be no solutions).
Which brings me to the proposed solution to the
paradox of desire dealt with in my article of
January 1979. It must seem curious that this
solution (if it is a solution) to this philosophic
problem (if it is a philosophic problem) should
entail the surrendering or the giving up of the
search for a solution.

P.532

If this "letting go, " this karma yoga-like
detachment, constitutes a solution to a philosophic
problem then it seems to run counter to all the
intuitions one might have heretofore held about
philosophic solutions. If this proposed solution to
the problem is a "solution" of sorts then what does
that have to say about the nature of, the necessary
and sufficient conditions for, both philosophic
problems and philosophic solutions? Perhaps in the
future someone will attempt an explication of these
two concepts. And that would be an interesting
philosophical project, and an obvious contribution,
as well, to Buddhist studies.